Old-school??? This phone is just some new-age gizmo.
Real phones have rotary dials.

If everyone still had those, there would be a lot less unnecessary calls.

Hey! Those rotary dialing things were a tremendous advance of automation compared to the earlier push-the-one-button or crank-the-handle predecessor where you then spoke to a real human being who then, following your requests, manually unplugged and replugged the connections to talk to other operators who then did likewise to eventually wire you through to the intended destination.

Indeed, shame that can all be done by non-human spambots now, very many times a second...

Old-school??? This phone is just some new-age gizmo.
Real phones have rotary dials.

If everyone still had those, there would be a lot less unnecessary calls.

Have you used one of those in the past several years?

I had to use an old phone (the 1937 Western Electric model) ring for authenticity in a play in 2009.

I bought a stage device that makes a phone ring from a 9v battery. Yes, I know I could have made one, but time was of the essence. Then, I had to dig through a lot of stuff to find one of my grandmother's phones. I found three.

None would ring.

Of course I had to change the plugs to modern plugs and in one case I had to snip-off some rat-chewed wires.

I turned one over to see "no ringer" painted on the bottom. Obviously a stencil had been used. Then I turned another one over to find "ringer" painted on it and I messed with my ringing device for quite a while before I opened the phone, only to find no ringer. I'm guessing the painted "no" had worn off.

So the third phone that had nothing painted on the bottom I opened, and there's the ringer, and everything's connected (with fabric-insulation wires, but built like a tank), but it won't ring.

I dug out a "modern" phone (20 years old or more) and the stage ringing device made that ring, so... okay, why won't this one ring? After a long internet search I found the wiring instructions for this phone. It seems the phone had been wired as a "party line" and while I don't know what that does to the ringer, I attached the wires on the block where they were supposed to go for a private line, and voila!

I rang it several times and just sat there listening. I hadn't heard a phone ring exactly like that since I was a child and while it was annoying as all hell, it was comforting, too. It was like finding your old security blanket in the attic. It was like hearing your grandfather call your name for the first time in 40 years.

The phone on Mark's desk may be an antique, but it didn't ring like those old, old phones. The old metal housing does something to the ring.

Just purely for grins I plugged it into the wall and called it from my Droid. It still worked.

So I had one of my daughters call me on it from her iPhone. Then I made her come and dial me up. She was so in awe of the way it worked, I had to explain about the number of clicks and that you could actually dial the phone by "flashing" the cradle if you did it correctly.

I called a long distance friend who I knew still used a corded phone and... and it was like moving from outside of a symphony hall listening through the door to being in the 16th row.

It's such a pleasure to hold that handset and, as Matt said, be able to cradle it with your shoulder. And everyone sounds like $1 million on it.

My daughter immediately wanted it for her bedroom.

It didn't hit me until later that I knew why the ringer was removed from those two phones, although the memory is dim. I know I remember that at one time you got charged for each extension in a house. It was the "ringer equivalence number" or some-such thing that "gave away" the fact that you had an extension. So, as long as there was no ringer in the phone, Ma Bell couldn't tell (or didn't care) if the extension phone was usable, but had no ringer.

We used it in the play (and one other time on-stage since), and I put it in a box of its own, and put it in a disused room at my parent's disused home.

No, I'm not likely to give-up the freedom of having a cordless phone, but one day when I can turn the @#@^%# smart phone off and take the freakin' blue flashing thing out of my ear...except for when I want to use it, I'm going to plug this Western Electric into the wall and it will become "my phone." I might just have people call me every so often to induce the occasional flash-back.

Here is my guess for the difference in the wiring....If the phone was wired up for a party line then it had to know how many rings for that phone. Up to 4 people would be connected on a party line (1 ring for the first person,2 for the second...etc). This is how you know which calls were for you and you ignored the other ones.

I'm not a old phone tech so my guess could be wrong and I would like to hear if anybody else has a better explanation.

I am an "old" phone tech, here in the UK we only had 2 subscriber party lines. They were "rung" to earth. Subscriber 1 was rung over the "A" leg to earth and subscriber 2 over the "B" leg to earth so phones had to be wired differently.

Also the subscribers would call the exchange but pressing a button on the phone which earthed their respective wires. "Liberal and proud to be"

Well everybody beat me to it but yeah, the voltage drop across the line would tell Ma Bell how many ringers were going off when you got a call and you would be billed accordingly. Also remember back then you did not own your own phone, they all belonged to Ma Bell and were just rented out to you. IIRC, the phone we had before the rotary dial you had to pick up and tap the disconnect a couple of times to get the operators attention. I also remember if the person making the call didn't hang up but the other did, when they picked up again you could continue talking.

Well everybody beat me to it but yeah, the voltage drop across the line would tell Ma Bell how many ringers were going off when you got a call and you would be billed accordingly. Also remember back then you did not own your own phone, they all belonged to Ma Bell and were just rented out to you. IIRC, the phone we had before the rotary dial you had to pick up and tap the disconnect a couple of times to get the operators attention. I also remember if the person making the call didn't hang up but the other did, when they picked up again you could continue talking.

I've never used a pre-rotary phone, but I know that at least up until 20 years ago, it was possible to maintain a connection by simply not hanging up in a lot of cases, even when using buttonphones. That part of the behavior of the old systems was apparently based in the backbone for pretty much all of the pre-cellphone era phone systems.

Here is my guess for the difference in the wiring....If the phone was wired up for a party line then it had to know how many rings for that phone. Up to 4 people would be connected on a party line (1 ring for the first person,2 for the second...etc). This is how you know which calls were for you and you ignored the other ones.

I'm not a old phone tech so my guess could be wrong and I would like to hear if anybody else has a better explanation.

When I was born my parents were living in a converted banana-packing shed up a valley in the Oz rainforest... We had a party line running up the valley (IIRC the phone ran off two enormous LeClanche cells something like 12" long and 2.5" in diameter -- I used to use the same batteries many years later to power up the glow-plug in diesel model-plane engines) and anyone could listen in to other subscribers' conversations. As I came rather unexpectedly into the world my father was understandably in something of a panic and called the nearest hospital to order an ambulance and ask for advice on how to deal with the umbilical cord, etc. At this point an old biddy, who everyone had long suspected of listening in on conversations, butted in with her tuppence-worth. My mother reckons that's the only time she ever heard Noel swear at a lady...

I think that in old electronic technology you could use your hands to make something. I remember soldering transistors, capacitors and resistors to make the circuits which controlled a bubble chamber used as a neutron detector built for IAEA at the Institute of Physics of Trieste University in 1959. Today this is impossible, you just can buy some components and assemble them.
Tullio

I think that in old electronic technology you could use your hands to make something. I remember soldering transistors, capacitors and resistors to make the circuits which controlled a bubble chamber used as a neutron detector built for IAEA at the Institute of Physics of Trieste University in 1959. Today this is impossible, you just can buy some components and assemble them.
Tullio

What do you mean impossible. I still make junky clunky little circuits with transistors, capacitors, and IC chips. I usually use those clunky little circuits to show me what a programmed CPLD's outputs are actually doing. #resist

I think that in old electronic technology you could use your hands to make something. I remember soldering transistors, capacitors and resistors to make the circuits which controlled a bubble chamber used as a neutron detector built for IAEA at the Institute of Physics of Trieste University in 1959. Today this is impossible, you just can buy some components and assemble them.
Tullio

What do you mean impossible. I still make junky clunky little circuits with transistors, capacitors, and IC chips. I usually use those clunky little circuits to show me what a programmed CPLD's outputs are actually doing.

Huh?

Are those like new names for tubes and condensers and coils and 497.5' of rope?

Well VOIP is great/cheap, but relies on your ISP and INET connection, no INET,
no phone.

I used to soldier transistors, IC's but before that, tubes, like the well
known 807, used for HF amplification.(Transmitter)
And Class B, 2 or 4x EL34, with 1KV on the anode's and negative first grid voltage. For 100 to 200 Watt amplifiers, they displayed a beautifull blue color
when used on maximum output, whitout clipping, i.e. reaching the + or - 1KV.
(EL34 is a pentode and 807 a tetrode, although the 3d grid is connected to the
cathode). Those amps were very heavy, a big 'mains' transformer, 6.3V cathode
filament, 300V for driver stages and 2x 1000V for the final stage, including
another big transformer, making 4-16 Ohm and 100V line output. And cooling wasn't a big problem and only needed for
far more (HF)Power. A magnetron is more efficient.

I sometimes miss those past days of glory........ :)
Today, you need a special "furnice" to "bake" a circuit. (Reflux oven/furnace).

Well everybody beat me to it but yeah, the voltage drop across the line would tell Ma Bell how many ringers were going off when you got a call and you would be billed accordingly. Also remember back then you did not own your own phone, they all belonged to Ma Bell and were just rented out to you. IIRC, the phone we had before the rotary dial you had to pick up and tap the disconnect a couple of times to get the operators attention. I also remember if the person making the call didn't hang up but the other did, when they picked up again you could continue talking.

I've never used a pre-rotary phone, but I know that at least up until 20 years ago, it was possible to maintain a connection by simply not hanging up in a lot of cases, even when using buttonphones. That part of the behavior of the old systems was apparently based in the backbone for pretty much all of the pre-cellphone era phone systems.

If I remember correctly... The person answering could hang up (for maybe up to a Min. or so) to go to another phone to talk on. Or you could hang up before yelling for whoever the call was for and they could pick up on another phone.

I also recall that having too many phones with ringers (turned on) could underpower the phones and then they would not ring! Dennis

Anybody here remember that before the ma bell breakup in 1982, you actully got timely service and a live operater. don't you just love the FCC and all their bright ideas. I really think I would have been happier born between 1880-1890..... oh well

Anybody here remember that before the ma bell breakup in 1982, you actully got timely service and a live operater. don't you just love the FCC and all their bright ideas. I really think I would have been happier born between 1880-1890..... oh well

Don't blame the FCC for that. It was the DOJ.

I do not remember these days.DavidSitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.